While I hardly think Stalin was a wonderful guy, and am not at all a fan of the totalitarian system he presided over, I don't agree that Stalin was worse than Hitler. It's not at all clear that Stalin had more people killed than Hitler did. Those who say that usually rely on figures of tens of millions for the number killed by Stalin that are highly questionable and seem to be based more on emotions and political agendas than hard fact.

And when calculating how much death Hitler was responsible for, you can't "just" look at the number he had murdered, you also have to factor in WWII, in which tens of millions died. Given that Hitler was the chief initiator of the European part of that war, he's entitled to most of the blame for the deaths that ensued.

Moreover, there's also the issue of intent. Most people consider Hitler "worse" because they don't just look at the number of deaths, they look at the fact that millions of the deaths Hitler caused were because of the Holocaust--a systematic, premeditated, organized genocide. This is widely seen as particularly morally heinous. However many deaths Stalin caused, he does not appear to have attempted to kill a whole group simply for what they were born as.

I disagree with this assessment as I indeed find Stalin to be the bigger of the Villans. We can start with the state sponsored witch hunt of the Kulaks(?). These Kulaks were the mildly important buisnessmen who owned farmland during the collectivisation of the USSR's food and farming systems. This was an entire group of people that he attempted to decimate, although this is a group of people defined by occupation and wealth rather than race or religion the result is still horrifying. Then we can move to the forced famine in Ukraine, again during the collectivization. This killed millions, although I forget the number but I believe it was around six million. In a machievllian sense you might have an arguement in which this could be defended, but this seems to be more out of malice than necessicty and at the minimum it shows gross in competence in leadership. That brings us to 1936, before the war begins.

Now we can speak about the dreaded "Purges". Here I will concede that things may become misleading. Although he did dispose of most of his officer corps to the tune of 30%+, he does seem to have only killed a couple thousand of them. The others just got to rot in the gulags until he required them for the war to come.

Next of course is the invasion of Poland! Here we get the well documented Forrest of Katyn(?) Massacure. Here we have Polish officers surrendering to, what they assumed was the more pleasent foe, much as you do. Instead of the German clear distinction between the murder of civilians and prisoners of War (Germany was known for treating POWs as well as Britan and France did. *Wester prisoners + Polish*) the Russians attempt what can only be called a genocide of the Polish people. They were to kill any intellectual or person of power and for the young children and women were relocated further into the depths of Russia.

Now we come to the actual war period, in which Russia loses something to the tune of 29 million people. Of course this can be blamed mostly on the Germans but some part must go towards Stalin's incompetence in his decimation of the officer corps and more importantly murder of Tuchevsky(?) The Guderian of the Russians.

In regards to the Polish, I'd say the Germans attempted the exterminate them just as much as the Russians. But Stalin definantly has a bigger list of atrocities than Hitler does. Once I get off work ill toss out some interesting reading materials in regards to the Russian War.

While I hardly think Stalin was a wonderful guy, and am not at all a fan of the totalitarian system he presided over, I don't agree that Stalin was worse than Hitler. It's not at all clear that Stalin had more people killed than Hitler did. Those who say that usually rely on figures of tens of millions for the number killed by Stalin that are highly questionable and seem to be based more on emotions and political agendas than hard fact.

And when calculating how much death Hitler was responsible for, you can't "just" look at the number he had murdered, you also have to factor in WWII, in which tens of millions died. Given that Hitler was the chief initiator of the European part of that war, he's entitled to most of the blame for the deaths that ensued.

Moreover, there's also the issue of intent. Most people consider Hitler "worse" because they don't just look at the number of deaths, they look at the fact that millions of the deaths Hitler caused were because of the Holocaust--a systematic, premeditated, organized genocide. This is widely seen as particularly morally heinous. However many deaths Stalin caused, he does not appear to have attempted to kill a whole group simply for what they were born as.

It is absolute fact that Stalin killed more than Hitler, and Mao killed more than Stalin. I don't like Hitler, but he is not the biggest vilan in history. And the Holodomor was mass murder of of Ukrainians- how is that different than killing Jews?....except that Stalin was more sucecssful? And then you have the Japanese who killed 1 in 5 Filipinos. Why is one group more sacred than any other?

It is absolute fact that Stalin killed more than Hitler, and Mao killed more than Stalin. I don't like Hitler, but he is not the biggest vilan in history. And the Holodomor was mass murder of of Ukrainians- how is that different than killing Jews?....except that Stalin was more sucecssful? And then you have the Japanese who killed 1 in 5 Filipinos. Why is one group more sacred than any other?

You might want to read this thread as there are those you might disagree with you on here.

I think you're being very picky here. Let me rephrase, The American "trad" Catholics that I have been in contact with, side with the Nazis and the Confederacy and will not acknowledge the slights faults of either. And they take no umbrage at being lumped together.

Picky or not, our guidelines state, "Always be respectful of Historum and other users...." Your post is disrespectful and offensive to me, and I'm not a Catholic. I am quite sure that our Catholic users would be equally put-off by it.

Those same guidelines go on to require, "You may not post any material which is defamatory, abusive, vulgar, hateful....." By my count, You've covered at least 2 of those "do-nots."

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yankee

I'm also fine with my name calling of FDR reflecting on me. If it is against forum rules, I'll stop but it doesn't bother me in the least that people know what I think of him and how that reflects on me.

Frankly, I'm not surprised that you are fine with such......opinions. But, yes, it is against the rules (see above cited portions of the forum guidelines.)

Hitler did have good reasons for invading Poland, as listed in the OP, but Germany was also bound by a treaty that was only 20 years old, though they had already openly violated it many times. France and Britain should have gone to war with Germany in '34 when they violated the treaty by implementing conscription. The allies also had good reasons for opposing unchecked German expansion and ample justification to do so.

As for the US, just as in the first world war, it really came down to our national interests. Ultimately, we're a maritime power, we enjoy an unquestioned position on our own continent so our defence and prosperity lies in the seas. As Germany worked to actively undermine the freedom of the seas and as Britain worked to actively secure the same, Britain was our natural ally. Back in 1812, when Britain was considered the primary threat to the freedom of the seas, we went to war with Britain. Plus, what possible benefit would we get from a German alliance? It would undermine our trade relations around the world and we had no interest in or desire for territorial gains on the European continent, which is the only thing Germany could have helped us achieve; our interests were simply not aligned. The only interest we would have had, on the side of Germany, was opening up free, or mostly free, trade with the British Empire, and we managed to achieve that anyway through economic and diplomatic pressure on Britain.

And this all ignores the political and cultural reality of the times. One of the reason (beyond general isolationism) that we delayed so long before entering WWI was because we could not stomach being aligned with Tzarist Russia, we would have been no more comfortable with the Kaiser and the Habsburgs and even less so with Hitler. An alliance with them would not have been politically feasible.

Plus, at least in the Second World War, Hitler supported Japan's surprise attack against us and declared war on us, at which point the demands of national honour were quite clear.

I'm sure there are those that disagree but numbers don't lie. The claim is Hitler killed 6 million Jews. Stalin killed 10 million Ukrainians. That doesn't even touch the Russian, Poles and Germans he killed.

Picky or not, our guidelines state, "Always be respectful of Historum and other users...." Your post is disrespectful and offensive to me, and I'm not a Catholic. I am quite sure that our Catholic users would be equally put-off by it.

Those same guidelines go on to require, "You may not post any material which is defamatory, abusive, vulgar, hateful....." By my count, You've covered at least 2 of those "do-nots."

Frankly, I'm not surprised that you are fine with such......opinions. But, yes, it is against the rules (see above cited portions of the forum guidelines.)

I'm Catholic I'm not disparaging anyone. I hang around with many Cahtolics and the ones who consider themselves to be trads, more often than not, love Nazis and the Confederacy. It's not inflamatory or abusive or hateful. This is a debate, this is my experience.

I was raised Catholic and I have never even heard of the term "trad." After a bit of googling I found out that they are fringe groups that aren't even in communion with the Catholic Church. They are hardly representative of Catholics. And I have never heard a single person, Catholic of not, have anything positive to say about Nazis. What kind of people do you hang out with?